You and I
by 13AnimePrincess13
Summary: "Being with you hurts, but so does being without you." A one-shot exploring Justin and Alex's complicated relationship. Jalex. Rated for implied incestuous feelings.


**A/N:** This is my second WOWP fic! Please review and tell me what you think! Criticism is welcomed. I hope you like it!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own WOWP or any of the characters.

_When it's italicized, it applies to one character._

**When it's bold, it applies to both Justin and Alex.**

* * *

><p><strong>You and I<strong>

Sometimes Alex wondered if anything would be different if her big brother hadn't gotten a head start – if, instead of letting him get the chance to dazzle the world around him before she'd been so much as a thought in her parents' heads, she'd been Justin's twin or his older sister. Would her life be any different? Would she be any different?

Most of the time, the answer that popped up in her head was a big fat _NO_. No. No, because even if their age difference changed, Justin would still be Justin. And if he was still Justin then Alex could be no one other than herself.

When was it that she realized how much he made her who she was? Maybe she'd known it from the start. She wasn't sure.

She remembered trying to be like him at first. She followed her big brother around, played what he played, said what he said, and did what he did by trying to mimic everything about him from his behavior, to his genius, to even his inexplicable obsession with tidiness. Then the adults would praise her for being just like her wonderful sibling.

At first she was happy with that. At first, it made her feel good to be compared to someone that grown-ups loved as much her brother, to be loved for being just like him.

But that was at first.

Then it started to bother her; it bothered her to be loved for being someone else, to be picked on for being someone she wasn't (seeing as Justin was a natural target for all the other kids). It bothered her to be Justin Russo's Little Sister and not Alex Russo.

And so she became the enemy of adults that demanded respect and obedience, she became the prankster instead of the pranked, the girl who didn't care enough or have enough motivation to be a genius at anything other than mischief.

She became Alex Russo.

But she never forgot living in her brother's shadow, not really. She never completely escaped those constant little reminders of what made Justin who he was and the painful fact that even then, despite being as different as they were – despite being complete opposites – he was the person who made her who she was.

_Every time she looked at him,  
>she was reminded of the things<br>she hated about herself._

* * *

><p>Justin's earliest memory was of the day he first laid eyes on his baby sister. His mom had been taken to the hospital after giving birth to Alex in a taxi, and his father had gone back to pick up his now-oldest child from his preschool and then brought him to see his mother and his new sibling.<p>

Justin remembered his first impression of the hospital: the large, intimidating outside of the building that brought about thoughts of bad guys and worse guys, and the bright white interior that smelled faintly of rubber and antiseptic. He'd passed through those clean halls with his father, who was walking so fast you'd think there was some sort of edible incentive for this unusually fast pace, wondering all the while about the stranger that he would be living with from now on. A little bit excited and anxious, a little scared and apprehensive, he thought about what his life would be like from now on – because, surely, this new existence would change his life.

And it did.

Justin's toddler-self had walked into his mother's room, where she lay on her bed fast asleep from the exhaustion of giving birth. A small bundle of blankets was clutched to her chest, but he was too short to see it well. Jerry, noticing the problem, lifted his son into the air and held him so that he hovered over Theresa. The little boy's eyes locked onto the tiny face poking out of the wraps of material, and he stared for a while at two rosy cheeks plump with baby fat, curly black hair, a button nose, and closed eyelids.

He couldn't understand what the fuss was about; he couldn't see how the lumpy creature before him was so special, so supposedly cute and exciting.

And then those eyelids began to lift, slowly rising and opening to reveal a pair of wide, brown eyes that looked at him – looked into him – in a way nothing and no one ever had before. They saw him, and they saw _all_ of him. He returned that long gaze with a surprised one of his own.

The baby started to cry from hunger then, and Justin was reunited with the ground as Jerry and his exhausted wife started to fuss over the new life before them.

And the little boy found himself wanting to look at those eyes again.

Years passed and they got older. More years passed and their little brother entered their lives. Alex turned out to be completely different from what anyone would have suspected, especially since she had such a good role model walking around the house. She became manipulative, devious, mischevious, and yet at the same time beautiful, creative, brave, and strong in a way that triggered emotions in Justin that he didn't want to feel.

Possibly the one thing that didn't change after all that time was the way her eyes – and her eyes alone – affected him. Sure, Justin started getting a feeling of foreboding that made his stomach to acrobatics (that was foreboding, right?) whenever he met Alex's eyes, glinting mischievously the way that only hers did. But despite that minor (cough_major_cough) detail, that gaze of hers never failed to make him feel as though someone was at last seeing him for who he really was – a human being with flaws.

Nothing ever unsettled him any more than that.

_Every time he looked at her,  
>he remembered how far he would always be<br>from the perfection he strived for._

* * *

><p><strong>Being with you hurt, but…<strong>

* * *

><p>The Family Wizard Competition took place in Justin's senior year of high school. In a battle of magic and wits, Alex and Justin were so caught up with one another that they completely forgot to pay attention to their little brother, who caught the pair by surprise and won the title of Family Wizard.<p>

Many were unprepared to find that the two eldest Russo's got over losing their powers pretty quickly. The part that devastated them was the loss of their supernatural partners, who were too dangerous to be together with mere humans. It took a long time for the two to accept the facts and even longer for them to move on.

Alex would never admit it, but after the whole thing was done and over with she later realized that (though Harper and her parents and even Max had helped) the one who'd gotten her through it was the person who was going through the same exact thing. Without him there to tell her all the right things when she needed comforting words and sit with her quietly on the days when she needed a less verbal consolidation, she might have been stuck that way for a long, long time. She privately hoped that she was able to do the same for him.

Four months later, the entire Russo family – including everyone from Uncle Ernesto to Aunt Megan – was celebrating Justin's graduation with exponential enthusiasm since he was the only one they knew for sure would get on the stage and receive his diploma without some sort of disaster taking place. (Max and Alex started to argue upon hearing their mother say this, but after thinking about it they nodded in agreement.) They had a big family graduation party. Justin got presents from everyone – even Alex, who gave him a white tie with the word "DORK" written all over in bold letters. She snickered when he quickly shoved it into his suit coat pocket, his face slightly pink.

A few days after the graduation, Alex was lying on her bed sketching when she heard a knock on the door.

She closed her sketchbook and walked to the door, mentally preparing an excuse to get out of doing whatever chore it was her parents wanted her to do.

When the door opened, however, the one standing in the doorway turned out to be Justin.

She raised an eyebrow questioningly and asked, "What's up?"

Justin was shifting his weight from foot to foot, fiddling nervously with something – an envelope, she thought – he was clutching in his hands. He met her eyes for a moment before looking down at the object he held.

"Can I talk to you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Obviously, since you just did, egghead."

He looked at her in mild exasperation. "Alex, this is serious!" he said sternly.

"Oh yeah?" she said skeptically, wondering if he was about to _seriously_ demand for her to return his Captain Jim Bob Sherwood lunchbox or something.

He nodded, still not meeting her eyes. "Yeah."

"Okay, then spit it out," she said, moving out of the doorway and plopping herself down on her bed in unspoken permission for him to enter.

He walked in looking uncomfortable in a way that reminded her of someone who was about to fess up to committing a crime. She felt a twinge of unease pierce her in somewhere in the abdomen. She ignored it.

Instead of talking, he handed over the envelope to her. She looked at it, scanning the address that said it was for Justin Russo and from–

"Justin," she said slowly, trying (and succeeding) not to sound as nervous as she felt. Alex Russo wasn't supposed to get nervous. "This is from Stanford, as in the Stanford from California, right?"

He nodded, looking at his hands.

"Is this an acceptance letter?"

Nod.

Something sank. She didn't know what. Maybe her heart? Her stomach? Her spleen? Something.

She swallowed. When she spoke, however, her voice was as nonchalant as nonchalant could get. "Isn't that a really good school?"

Nod.

"So, are you going?"

It wasn't that she didn't know the answer, which was pretty obvious since he wouldn't have bothered showing her otherwise. At least not like this. He might have done it to brag, but Justin seemed far from bragging at the moment. If anything he looked a little ashamed, as though it was something bad to be accepted to a super famous college. No, the only reason she was asking was to keep herself from saying what she _really_ wanted to say–

Finally using his voice, Justin simply said, "Yes."

_Don't go. Don't go. Don't leave. Don't go. Stay here– _

"So…good job, I guess?" She purposely used a tone of voice that was meant to tell him she didn't care he was going across the country for who-knew-how-long.

He looked up and locked his eyes on hers, searching for something that she didn't want him to find. This time, it was she who looked away.

"Thanks," he said in an unrecognizable tone of voice.

An awkward silence fell, and Justin excused himself.

Alex tried to go back to drawing after he left, but something must have been wrong with her hand because every time she started to draw, it would suddenly stop moving. She eventually gave up and took a nap, suddenly feeling inexplicably exhausted.

Justin left for college two months later.

"Be good," Jerry told his eldest child. "Oh, and son? I know it'll be hard for you, but I think it's best if you try to sleep without a nightlight; you'll have a roommate from now on and who knows what they'll do once they find out you sleep with a glowing doll."

"It's not a doll," Justin said indignantly, "it's an _action figure_."

"Right. Action figure," his father corrected himself. He mumbled non-too subtly out of the corner of his mouth, "It is _so_ a doll."

Justin, though he'd obviously heard this, ignored his father's comment.

Theresa was sobbing too hard to speak coherently, but she managed to give a watery goodbye and a strangle-hold hug.

Max came forward and handed his brother a sock full of something that, when Justin peaked inside, made him scream and throw it across the room.

"Hey!" Max said. "That was a present!"

No one asked what it was.

Alex was unusually quiet throughout the entire exchange. She felt scared of what she'd say or do if she opened her mouth, so she kept her lips tightly sealed.

Justin looked at her with a sad smile and gave her a tight squeeze. He whispered in her ear so no one else could hear, "I'll miss you."

Suddenly, Alex's arms were wrapped around her brother so tightly that she didn't know if she would be able to let go. All too quickly, he had to gently disentangle himself and head towards the airplane.

He looked back at his family one last time and she could've sworn that she saw him looking just at _her_, but maybe she was just imagining it. She watched the plane go until it disappeared above the clouds.

They got home, and Theresa was still in hysterics, sobbing about how her baby was all grown up and going away. Alex went up to her room as Jerry struggled to comfort his distraught wife, closing the door behind her.

Something was wrenching at her insides, yanking and tugging and tearing and breaking them and _it hurt_ – it hurt so bad that, for the first time since Justin lost his memory on the island, Alex Russo cried.

_She hadn't realized  
>that she would miss him<br>until he left._

* * *

><p>Justin settled back on the small bed that took up most of his small side of the small dorm room. His roommate was out with some girl (<em>again<em>), and so he decided to take advantage of the silence to take a break from his studies and just relax.

_Relax_, he told himself as he lay there. _Relax._

But doing so, he soon discovered, was more difficult than he might have thought. At least when he was studying he had something to keep his mind occupied, to keep too busy to wonder into the dangerous territory that was _her_ territory – not his.

Nothing and no one worked him up more than she did. Only she seemed to have the power to reduce him to sputtering incoherently in rage and indignation that he struggled to express to her when the time came to do it. Only she seemed to make him feel inferior and jealous and twist him around her little finger without a second thought, twisting him until he felt like he'd _snapbreaktearhurthurthurt_. Only she seemed to know him enough to make him ecstatic with pure joy on those rare occasions when she "felt like" being nice.

Only Alex.

Justin groaned and rolled onto his stomach. He buried his head in his pillow, as though by drowning his face in the old, dust-scented cloth, he could drown the thoughts of Alex that he knew he shouldn't be thinking. Because what kind of big brother thought about his little sister _all the time_?

The answer seemed to come into his ear in a familiar mischievous voice saturated in teasing laughter: "Big brothers like _you_, Justin."

Justin jerked his head around so wildly that he got a crick in his neck. Wincing as he rubbed it, he glanced around the room. No Alex, of course. She couldn't transport herself with magic anymore, he reminded himself.

And even if she could, he reasoned, why would she bother coming to see him?

A tiny voice inside of him seemed to think/hope/wish, "Because you're her favorite. You always have been and always will be."

Justin snorted. He was her favorite, all right – her favorite _punching bag_.

But if he was honest with himself (which, in this case, he very well might never be), he'd admit to himself that, honestly…he didn't really _mind_ being her favorite punching bag. Justin Russo was no masochist, don't be mistaken. It was just that he thought that having the best of her/most of her pranks aimed at him showed something: it showed that he _mattered_. If he wasn't important to her, then she wouldn't bother; she wouldn't get as much satisfaction (though, knowing her, she'd still get _some_) from pulling jokes on someone whose existence didn't stand out to her.

Her pranks meant he stood out to her.

He stood out to her.

_He hoped/prayed/wished he stood out to her._

Still rubbing his neck, Justin closed his eyes with a sigh. He wondered how it had started. How did she become the center of his universe?

It was probably that day, he thought. The day when he first looked into her big brown eyes, those eyes that looked at him in a way no other eyes ever did/would/could. From that day onward, he'd come to care about her – not just her eyes, but all of her: everything from her head to her toes, from her personality to her happiness. Everything.

But even though he cared about her happiness, Justin couldn't help but hate where that happiness _came from_ sometimes. He didn't want her to be glowing with joy because of car-obsessed rebels like Dean Moriarty, or pretty-boy werewolves with stupid British accents like Mason Greyback.

Who then, did he want her happiness to come from?

He knew who. He knew, but he didn't want to say it, didn't want to so much as _think_ it. Because it was something he wasn't allowed to think, wasn't _supposed_ to think.

And yet he did.

And that one desire of his scared him. Justin was scared of himself for the sake of his sister, his family, and, to his shame, for his own sake.

And so he kept it all locked up deep inside of him and kept wrapped in chains with lead weights on the lid and a lock harder than diamond. But sometimes, it seemed as though even diamond couldn't win against the writhing monster he was desperate to hide from the world, from himself, and most of all from _her_. From Alex.

_He suffered in silence  
>because that was the best<br>that he could do._

* * *

><p>…<strong>but so does being without you.<strong>

* * *

><p>Alex Russo enjoyed many things such as art, being lazy, causing trouble, manipulating people, watching TV with a big bowl of popcorn and a Coke, sleeping in, hanging out with Harper (when Harper wasn't making her feel uncomfortable), going out with Mason, etc. But there had always been that one favorite pastime that she loved above all the rest, one that had an effect on her that the others failed to have: messing with her big brother.<p>

It's not that she didn't like the other things, because she really did. But as fun as they were, they just didn't satisfy her, never gave her complete release from that nagging feeling she often got, as though there were little people inside of her tugging on her heart and pushing into her lungs. It was a faint feeling that she could never understand, one that was almost always there.

_Almost._

Except for when_ he_ was around.

Just by being there he made the yanking on her heart _stop_ and the crushing of her lungs_ stop_. He made all those unnerving sensations go away, and like magic she could finally _breathe_ again. He may have lost his powers to Max, but he still had a little bit of magic left that no one could ever take away from him.

Whenever Alex messed with Justin, the rest of the world disappeared along with all the problems it carried with it. All that was left was them, her laughing as he reacted perfectly to her newest prank.

On those rare occasions when they actually agreed on something, with him backing her up, she felt like she could do anything and everything. As long as Justin was on her side, Alex Russo could take on the world if she had to.

_He made her feel alive._

* * *

><p>From the outside, one might think that being Justin Russo was easy. He was handsome, got excellent grades, went to a prestigious college, was loved by all the adults in his life, and had a bright future ahead of him.<p>

People who only saw that far did not know Justin Russo.

He had problems, too – quite a few of them actually. For instance, it tended to be rather inconvenient for a nineteen year-old to be afraid of the dark. He got picked on by his peers for being a goody-two shoes and teacher's pet (they were just jealous!), he had to put up with rooming with a sloppy twenty-four year old that wouldn't let Justin clean up his side even just a _teensy-weensy little bit_, he missed the majority of his Captain Jim Bob Sherwood merchandise that he'd reluctantly left at home when he discovered he had no room to take all of it with him, his closest friends were across the country (he could just _imagine_ Zeke and the other Alien Language League members happily chatting away in alien without him, completely unphased that one of their few members had left), and his family was, too.

And those were just _some_ of his problems.

There had always been frustrations in his life like his bad luck with girls and the intense pressure to achieve perfection – always there, glowing in flashing neon letters within the confines of his mind.

And then, there was Alex.

At the exact moment that they first laid eyes on each other, Justin had been dropped into the car of a rollercoaster ride with her – one without so much as a_ hint _of safety equipment. He'd been riding it ever since, twisting and dropping and rising and dropping again and turning and going backwards and doing loop-dee-loops that made him feel both exhilarated and sick to his stomach. Alex would just laugh gleefully all the while.

Sometimes, though, the roller coaster would stop at the beginning again. He could get off and never need to return. But then, he'd make the mistake of looking at her. He'd meet her brown eyes, and they'd suddenly become sad and plead with him not to go.

He didn't go.

And then the ride would start again, on an even wilder track than the previous, and he'd feel the same torrent of emotions all over again even stronger than the last.

With every ride, the feelings would get worse – the excitement, the nausea, the joy and pain and guilt and rage and jealousy and accursed _love_ and the _everything_ grew exponentially bigger than he was. They chewed him up, gulped him down, and spat him out, only to eat him again.

Despite that, with every ride, he became even more unable to leave.

_She was the only thing  
>that killed him.<em>

* * *

><p>Alex walked into her brother's room. She'd been doing that a lot lately, just walking in and rummaging through his things with a bitter-sweet sense of nostalgia placing a small smile on her lips. She passed through his room, running her hand across the dresser (and quickly wiping it on her jeans once she realized how much dust there was) and settling on his bed. Gone were the Captain Jim Bob Sherwood sheets that she remembered; unable to bear the separation, Justin had brought them with him to college. In their place were clean, cream colored-sheets and a dull gray comforter. She rested her head on the pillow and stretched out on her back, not quite reaching the end of the bed with her toes.<p>

She wondered why she still hadn't gotten used to having him gone. Both Max and Jerry seemed to accept his absence. Even Theresa appeared to be moving on, though she still missed her baby terribly.

Yet there was Alex – unsentimental, I'm-too-lazy-to-care Alex – visiting her brother's room every night after the rest of the house had gone to sleep.

Why? He was so different from her, and the contrast between them often showed up in ugly ways. She turned on her side and stared at the wall as though it were displaying her memories like a miniature movie theater, although she saw nothing.

Watching him overachieving all the time, seeing him get all those good grades and awards and praise…it made her feel almost…_dissatisfied_ with herself. Justin's accomplishment after accomplishment sometimes kinda-sorta-almost made her want more out of her life, as if lying on the couch and making fun of the stupid heroines in movies wasn't good enough. Psh, as if!

Of course, it wasn't as though he made her feel like she was living in his shadow. She was over that; that was complete history. She wasn't even sure why she'd think about it, since she _hated_ history. Really, why would she even remember that? It was weird how she thought about it sometimes, even long after it was done and over with. Every time she was told that she should be more like her brother, she remembered those days when she was always being compared to him. She even remembered the feelings so vividly it was as if she was feeling them all over again – not that she was.

She had to admit though (to herself, not to anyone else)…he _did_ make her feel stuff. Sometimes. A lot of times. And it wasn't always stuff she (or anyone else) wanted to be feeling.

Whenever her mom and dad or her teachers bragged about how wonderful and perfect and amazing and _wow_ Justin was in a way they'd never talk about _her_, she got this weird feeling in her chest. It would get a kinda hot and something inside of it would squeeze in a way she didn't like. She didn't like it one bit. (Of course, whenever she got this feeling because of Justin, she made sure to get back at him for it since she was Alex Russo and that's what she did.)

And then, he would always pick girls she didn't like to date. He should really let her pick his girlfriends for him, she thought, since the boy had no taste whatsoever. Okay, so Juliet could do that think with her fangs where she'd suck out the jelly in donuts (you had to like that), but that was just one little thing. The girl was thousands of years old, for crying out loud! (Sure, Mason was kind of old, too, but still…that had nothing to do with it.) His choice in girls _bothered _her for reasons she couldn't seem to explain.

But then again, Justin didn't just make her feel bad things. When she was around him, she learned new things – not just school-ish things (ew, school), but things she never realized about _herself_. She realized things like how he inspired her to try a tiny bit harder and to paint. She realized that he whenever he started to freak out about something, somehow she was able to feel a bit calmer, that he softens her in a way that she wasn't sure she liked, a way that made her feel vulnerable, and that he seemed to lift the barriers between her heart and herself that muffled her emotions, making them duller and less vibrant.

* * *

><p><strong>You bring out the worst of me.<strong>

* * *

><p>Justin had learned to be careful around Alex a long, long time ago. She was dangerous; she had a dangerous effect on him by being the one thing, the one person that got under his skin the most. She was the only person who could render him to a squeaking, twitching mess as simply and naturally as blinking. She seemed to work as an amplifier to his senses and emotions, making him more sensitive to the world around him and to her – making him more susceptible to her strangely mesmerizing influence. And just like that, he'd be a little marionette – and with a flick of her wrist, he would dance.<p>

She had this way of peeling away at his maturity like a banana, stripping it away in easy slices until all that was left was the childishness within. She happily reduced him to a level beneath her and suddenly, he'd realize that he'd become her plaything.

Worst of all was the fact that she made him feel so weak. Alex was always charging into danger without giving a first – let alone a second – thought about the consequences of such recklessness, always risking herself for the sake of others without even needing time to consider. And he'd just watch from the sidelines, awed and yet worrying about her and himself like a coward; just worrying and never _doing_ until the very last moment despite the fact that she needed him from the start.

In a way, though, her reckless sense of justice helped him change for the better. By making him realize how shamefully weak he could be she showed him his weaknesses, giving him the priceless opportunity to improve himself in ways he might not have otherwise gotten the chance to do so. Not only did she make him a better wizard before the Family Wizard Competition, she also encouraged him to be a more admirable person.

Just by spending time with her and being around her, Justin learned things he'd never thought about learning before – from things about himself to things about magic to things about life in general. It was ironic that the person who made fun of his intelligence the most made him even more of a know-it-all in a way.

Something that amazed him was the way she made him relax. Sure, she got him all worked up practically on a daily basis, but at the same time she removed the pressures and frustrations and crushing burden of being a responsible person long enough for him to take a deep breath and realize he'd made it through another day in one piece.

* * *

><p><strong>But at the same time,<br>you bring out the best of me.**

* * *

><p>Justin was coming home for Christmas, and that was all Alex could think about. When the day finally arrived for the Russo's to pick up the eldest son from the airport, she called a taxi five hours before he was due to land.<p>

"Come _on_!" She yelled impatiently from the front seat, "or I'm going to go without you!" She waved a wad of dollars pointedly at her family. Jerry's eyes widened and he reached into his pocket for his wallet jerkily. Alex heard her father screaming her name, but ignored it with an ease that came only with practice and told the cab driver to just go without the rest of her family.

"Whoa, Dad!" She heard Max say as they rolled out of the driveway. "Did you cover your face in Mom's lipstick or something? It's _really_ red. It's okay, though; I do that too sometimes."

Alex snickered at her family members before returning to thinking about one family member in particular.

Really, why was she in such a rush to get there? She and Justin were so different. He was a complete dork, an OCD know-it-all try-hard who had an unhealthy obsession with science. And she…well, she was Alex Russo – his opposite in almost every sense.

Despite all that, though…she _cared_.

She cared so much that it scared her.

* * *

><p><strong>You were everything I wasn't.<strong>

* * *

><p>As he boarded the plane, Justin felt his butterflies fluttering about in his stomach like there was no tomorrow.<p>

He was going home.

_He was going to see her again._

He remembered the day when he left for Stanford, the way she'd clung onto him with all her strength in one last, silent plea for him to _stay with her, not leave her, bewithher_. He'd wished he could have the strength to do what he wanted, too – had the strength to hang onto her and never let go without caring what their parents did or said or thought.

But he didn't. He was not strong like Alex Russo.

He was just Justin Russo.

And that was all he would ever be.

* * *

><p><strong>You were what I'd never be.<strong>

* * *

><p>Alex spent the four-and-a-half hour wait walking around the airport, looking at magazines in newspaper stands and playing small tricks on the travelers like making a farting noise behind one lady and walking away fast enough that the guy next to her got the blame instead. She had this pent-up energy that she couldn't seem to get rid of, and she couldn't make herself stay still for more than five minutes.<p>

She tapped her feet impatiently as she waited at the gate Justin was supposed to get off at. The other Russo's weren't there. Later, she found out that Max had somehow ended up turning Theresa's favorite vase into a mushroom, resulting in a good few hours of the family trying to figure out how to return it to its original state. Once they'd done so, Max broke it, and upon receiving a scolding and messing up a spell meant to repair it, ended up breaking it even more.

But to be honest, the location of her absent family members and what they were doing was the last thing on Alex Russo's mind. All she could think about the same person she was waiting for with such impatience. She wondered what she should say when she saw him. Should she play it cool and act like she didn't care whether he was in New York or Hong-Kong, or should she make a sarcastic comment about his sense of fashion? Should she order him to buy her a pretzel in celebration of his return?

As it turned out, she did none of these things. The moment she saw him for the first time in too long, stepping through the gate and looking all tall and handsome and dorky with his green-gray eyes searching the crowd for_ someone_, her feet began to move. She shoved people out of the way, pushed through hugging couples and families and friends, and _ran._

* * *

><p><strong>You were all I'd ever wanted.<strong>

* * *

><p>The moment the pilot told the passengers to leave Justin was grabbing his travel bag and clumsily speed-walking (because running was dangerous) off the plane. He only apologized out of habit to those he crashed into because he couldn't concentrate on the strangers he bruised; he didn't <em>care<em> about them.

The only thing he could think about was the image that had been burned into the back of his eyes, an image of a pair of brown eyes he couldn't find anything to compare to no matter which part of the country or world or universe he was in, because there was only one pair like _that_ and would only ever be just one.

He sped through the gate and searched the crowd, desperately trying to find her, desperate to _be with her_ again. And then he saw her, pushing her way through the crowd and running – Alex, who doesn't even get up to get her own popcorn, _running_ – to _him_.

He was mildly surprised to find that his feet were moving, too.

When she reached him, she threw her arms around his neck and he crushed her to his side, wishing he could do more but unable to do so.

"You should've gotten here sooner, dork," she panted into his ear.

He felt his heart crack a little – not break, just crack – and pulled her even closer to him. "I missed you too," he told his one and only little sister.

* * *

><p><strong>You were the one thing<br>I could never have.**


End file.
